The median Boomer has a housing cost of $612. That includes taxes and insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where those fictional people live where $612 includes taxes and insurance but it isn’t around here. I also don’t understand why it’s so difficult to process why people living on a fixed income with a paid off mortgage don’t want to leave their homes that they spent years paying for and enjoying.

Places like Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, upstate NY, etc. Aka, Flyover Country. They have very few natural disasters, home prices have been very low until the COVID years, and jurisdictions often have caps on property tax increases that leave Boomers paying only a fraction of the fair market value on taxes compared to young families that recently purchased.

Our taxes and insurance (sub $1 million house, admittedly) in DC are below that,around $6k/year. But of course that doesn't count maintenance.

[Anonymous]

Newsflash, in 30 years the Xer mortgage payment will also look small due to inflation (that's the point of fixed rate!) and as they start retiring and paying off the mortgage, the payment will look even smaller!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

[Anonymous]

If the proposed solution is to uproot people from their homes, that's not a good solution.

We need to be more willing to establish new towns and cities rather than live attached to major city centers. Life isn't as expensive if you are simply as willing to move as earlier generations.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand this. Are boomers grandfathered in to low taxes and insurance or something? How on earth could they pay so much lower than the rest of us with similar houses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

The irony is that you just proved our point: there are Boomers who have amassed small fortunes by having a career as a teacher, nurse, firefighter, low wages jobs, etc. They were able to buy property near job centers, had low cost for education (teacher or nurse), maybe a pension, decent 401K match.

Not at all possible today for similar jobs held by Millennials or Gen Z to amass significant assets as Boomers who held the same professions. This is the story!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

PP here and I didn't say or even imply any of what you are accusing me of here.

I don't think younger generations are at all more capable of managing money than Boomers. But Boomers have a lot of wealth, and mostly younger generations don't. In previous eras, the only people with a lot of wealth were either from families with generations of experience managing it (and even then they often screwed it up) or they amassed it themselves via financial/business savvy and had some clue of how to protect it. But now we have a lot of Boomers who became millionaires simply by investing in 401ks and buying homes to live in. Most have no idea how to protect that wealth, as they simply did what they were told and then benefitted from unprecedented gains in the real estate and financial markets.

I'm not "knocking" any positions, that's just in your head. But teachers are not actually in the group I'm talking about because many have pensions and access to inexpensive healthcare (including Medicare supplements) via union agreements. My MIL was a teacher and I worry less about her because the pension is guaranteed income and she has more options regarding healthcare. But she also won't leave behind much because you can't inherit a pension. So teachers tend to be in a separate category here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Are boomers grandfathered in to low taxes and insurance or something? How on earth could they pay so much lower than the rest of us with similar houses?

When it comes to property taxes, many states (eg, California) and local jurisdictions (eg, DC and thousands of other cities & counties) cap property taxes from appreciating for long time home owners. So if you own your home for a long time, you will pay only a fraction in property taxes of what newer home owners will pay. This is especially true in areas that have seen rapid price appreciation in recent years.

It’s massively market-distorting and keeps older residents in their big homes because they don’t want to pay more in taxes. California tried to alleviate this by allowing older residents to sell their home and apply the original discounted property tax rate to a new property….its had mixed results. But even in California, you have houses in Malibu that are worth $10m but they pay the original property tax on the $300K value when they purchased the property in 1980. So maybe they pay $10K per year in property taxes while their next door neighbor pays $100K/year.

There’s variations of these tax distortions all over the US. Now apply this to vacation homes and investment properties, plus zoning restrictions….it puts younger buyers at a massive disadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where those fictional people live where $612 includes taxes and insurance but it isn’t around here. I also don’t understand why it’s so difficult to process why people living on a fixed income with a paid off mortgage don’t want to leave their homes that they spent years paying for and enjoying.

My parents live in CA, and because of Prop 13 they pay around $1000 per year property tax on a house worth 1.5M. I don’t know what the insurance is.

[Anonymous]

3+BR is a wide net, including 4 and 5+ BR. A 5 BR house is double the sqft of a 3BR, on average.

The problem is real estate agent costs (improving now) and the insanity of excise taxes, punishing people for making socially good decisions to move house.

Capital gains taxes are a secondary important concern, since they aren't inflation adjusted.

Also, "mother in law suites". Large houses need to be modified so an elder can live on a ground floor in a separate space from the family / housemates who lives in the rest of the space.

Younger generations aren't priced out of homeownership:
https://fortune.com/2024/01/17/redfin-baby-boomers-gen-z-housing-market-homeownership/

Also notice switcheroo here, lying with statistics

"More than half of boomers have no mortgage. That group pays a median $612 in monthly housing costs, which includes insurance and property taxes,"

First, this is all boomers, including condo owners, not the 3+BR house owners.

"Have no mortgage" isn't a meaningful way to filter. Having home equity vs mortgage debt+investment doesn't change wealth. These people are "paying" an extra few percent of their home value in foregone investment gains, bringing their costs up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wow you people are nuts. Boomers actually bought real 3/2 simple starter homes and coped with 18% interest rates in the 1980s. Oh, actual gas SHORTAGES too.

We did have a break and college tuition compared to today, but most of us went to community colleges or state colleges. We didn't feel entitled to go to Yale.

We worked our way up, we worked long hours and paid our dues.

Young people today aren't interested in starting at the bottom.

This. Our first two homes were small townhouses before we could afford a single family house. Our first home interest rate was in the double digits. Boomers didn't graduate college and immediately go into large single family homes the way you fantasize. In our last neighborhood it was the younger gen z buying the largest, most expensive homes.

Work your way up in the housing market the way everyone else does. And while you're at it start seeing a therapist to work out your issues if you're the same person who keeps posting these boomer real estate rantings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wow you people are nuts. Boomers actually bought real 3/2 simple starter homes and coped with 18% interest rates in the 1980s. Oh, actual gas SHORTAGES too.

We did have a break and college tuition compared to today, but most of us went to community colleges or state colleges. We didn't feel entitled to go to Yale.

We worked our way up, we worked long hours and paid our dues.

Young people today aren't interested in starting at the bottom.

I bought my first house at that rate and most houses back then were 3/1. Most of us Boomers here didn’t have a mortgage interest rate of less than 5% until well after the turn of the century. I think my first below 5% was in like 2014. So yes the sticker price was less but not factoring in the cost of high interest rates means not comparing apples to apples.

And yes, in the DMV, this accurately reflects my current housing costs now that the mortgage is paid off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And?

Think you forgot the part of your complaint where you insist that these people give up their homes that they paid for and move away so you all can live there.

Accepting for the sake of discussion that baby boomers are actually disconnected from your sad, heartbreaking plight to not buy a 4-bedroom home, how exactly does this impact you?

+100

Seems like you want a Boomer hate thread.

They struggle with the same thing. I’m sure a fair percentage of them are sick of dealing with a house but would pay more to live in a smaller place.

I’m not a Boomer and would love to move into a condo but can’t justify paying 3x more a month to do that.

[Anonymous]

*yawn* another "complain about the boomers" thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

The irony is that you just proved our point: there are Boomers who have amassed small fortunes by having a career as a teacher, nurse, firefighter, low wages jobs, etc. They were able to buy property near job centers, had low cost for education (teacher or nurse), maybe a pension, decent 401K match.

Not at all possible today for similar jobs held by Millennials or Gen Z to amass significant assets as Boomers who held the same professions. This is the story!

My spouse and I are Millennials doing very well. Much better off than my own Boomer parents, and probably on par with spouse’s Boomer parents.

But - we moved from our hometown early, prioritized savings and paying off debt young, and have been willing to take career opportunities that have necessitated several moves since then.

I am so sick of the constant whining of my generation and those younger. It’s still very possible to have a nice life. You just have to work for it and BE PATIENT.